Great belay device. Versatile trad/sport/rappell. Good friction almost auto belay like gris-gris. Easy to use. Swear by it. PPl seem to either love it or hate it tho. I dropped mine so I bought a second hand one recently. Can't get them anymore. It's a shame 'cos it's a great design.

As far as I understand Tre-Pfullingen didn't sell enough TRE Sirius devices to make a profit, so they sold the patent on to Edelrid.Edelrid in turn decided not to bother with a 2 rope device (incidentally the main reason I don't buy anything edelrid until they do).

@ Stefan - thanks for the info. Relieving to know it was a profitability thing and not a safety issue. (And I agree with you that Edelrid are wasting that patent by not selling a two-rope version).

@Not - Thanks for the links. Interesting device, with a similar 'camming' action to the Smart - i.e. device rotates around 'biner to pinch the rope. I've seen one of these in action before - the abseil/lower mechanism seems a bit awkward, having to apply lateral palm pressure ( whereas GriGri/Cinch/Tre/Smart all use a more natural downward pull ). I'd want to testdrive one of these before making a firm decison.

Yip. the Tre was a great device. and my feeling is that it was actually a bit complex to get used to--at first, I didn't like it, but once i got the hang of it, I fell in love. Mine's still going strong, and I'm not selling. As Gustav once remarked to me--giving a new climber a Tre to belay with is like giving a learner driver a Porsche.So I think the main reason they fell out of favour with the market is probably that people tried them once, didn't like them, and then they got a bad rap. having said that, anyone who owns a Tre raves about them.Probably they should have done more marketing, not along the lines of "It's a great device" but rather--try it, and you'll see that you'll like it.Having said that, it was basically three buddies who came up with the concept and started a company to manufacture their product. No company can make it from just one product, especially if that product is a belay device (go check how many karabiners you own vs how many belay devices you own).

all of that is moot, though, as I have tried my utmost to get more Tre's, and apart from 2nd hand ones, it seems like they aren't to be had.Pity, that.